Yea, truly, I owe my discovery of the Campus Crusades infernal conspiracy to the conjunction of cough syrup and the Cimmerian passageways of Butler. Spending my Sunday evenings in my usual fashion- drinking about half a bottle of Robitussin or Vicks 44 and walking around the stacks of Butler after they close- the spirit moved me to stop and pick up a copy of Nietzsche's The Gay Science. Even in my dextromethorphan-hydrobromide-induced state of euphoria, It was not hard to tell that something was amiss. I quickly called the security guard to release me from the stacks and ran back to my room to check my copy of the text. And I was right, the latter part of that quote was not in my copy, or any other copy, for that matter. Finishing off the bottle of Robitussin (incidentally, it was actually "Tussin," same good stuff but half the price, at Rite Aid), and contemplating the happenings of the last few days, it was not long before I deduced the diabolical scheme that led to this strange juxtaposition of Nietzsche and our late savior. It must have been two weeks ago that I first saw the signs, "Don't Believe in God, Come to the Sundial at 12," followed by "Jubilation...Dare to find out more," and then shortly afterward "Bacchanal: party in Lerner." Why was it that these flyers either said nothing about the events that they advertised or implied a purpose distinctly different from that which they actually intend?

I went to the sundial at 12 expecting the long overdue meeting of the clandestine Campus Crusade for Cthulhu or at the very least a new transfiguration of the Word in flesh. Yet I was only to find some man talking some other man, the former wanting some dead man to be alive and the latter no doubt wanting the former dead. But why didn't the flyers just admit their own true intent? Was that curious man trying to bring us to religion through deception? That certainly did seem to explain a lot of things.

Like that time that I showed up for "acoustic guitar on the steps" and was perplexed by how all of the guitarists seemed to know the same songs, none of which I had ever heard of or cared to learn. Or the fact that, according to Facets, the University seal "depicts the College as a woman seated on a throne, speaking the words auri el, "God is my Light," adapted from Psalms 27:1. In her right hand she holds an open Bible bearing the Greek inscription, logia zonta, "The Words of Life," which alludes to St. Stephen's utterance in Acts 7:38."

The underlying trend is clear. The Campus Crusade for Christ, being the intelligent followers of the almighty creator and his recalcitrant son, realized that there is little chance that a student would come to them of his or her own free choice and decided that through clever deception, they could bring more people to salvation.

In fact, it is quite likely that they found inspiration for their new plot in the artful guile and subterfuge of the administration. Take one of those tours for prospectives ("take," here, is a rhetorical device. The author of this column is in no ways suggesting that one should actually permit him/herself to be taken on such a tour), except instead of getting tricked into believing that "a coherent on-line course syllabus and the demolition of that tin can are both just around the corner" you get convinced that divine salvation is around the corner.